


It Was A Heartbeat

by black_ink_tide



Series: It Was A Heartbeat [1]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Angst, Child Loss, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-20
Updated: 2011-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-21 14:02:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_ink_tide/pseuds/black_ink_tide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for k-meme:<br/>Hawke is pregnant with Fenris’ child. Fenris feels finally at peace and deals with being in love, becoming a father and being truly happy for the first time. Hawke is attacked at home and the child taken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Her touch as light as silk on my skin, catching, snagging on broken edges, on ridges and scars.

On these damn markings.

Her fingers whisper across them, silk and breath, and I ache. I burn, not with fire, but with this unnatural alchemy.

Fingers. Swollen lips. Eyelashes. She knows them. Not me. Never me. Just the beautiful chemicals burnt into my hide. She must be drawn to them. It’s in her nature to seek out that drug, that which is in me. _Mage_.

No, that’s not fair. Not true.

I lie to myself.

She feels the heat in them, I see it in her. Unexpected heat.

"Hawke."

A beast, like me, in her own right. Sleek, and dark. She carries the night in her hair. The day in her eyes. A raven. A black feather of her hair falls across her face, her soft white cheek against my thigh. I am tense, even as she envelops me, in her hands, in her skin, in herself.

Hawke.

The raven feathers. The wolf’s hide. We belong on the forest floor, she and I, not this bed. The thought thrills me, deep in my chest, below her lips. I relax at the thought, I let go. A place we belong together. She kisses me above my heart. She can feel it, pounding, and I feel her smile against my skin. Predatory and protective in the same moment.

I feel it, before the memories come that night. Before it all comes back. If I were to name it all, I would call it life. I am overwhelmed and will dress myself again while she is still asleep and warm.

I am armed again, protected by a shell, and it feels natural. I skulk off, ashamed of myself for it. Back to a cold dead house. Alone. My hands and skin smell of her.

I can’t understand her. I try, and I fail. Maybe I don’t try hard enough. I think I never will, never could.

But she is burnt on my brain. My soul, if I have one yet.

That is not a lie.


	2. Chapter 2

“So, Hawke,” Aveline sets down her flagon on the tabletop, “You’ve got all of us here. What is this grand announcement you needed to make?”  
We are all collected together in Hawke’s estate. Full bellies, empty glasses.

Hawke’s cool eyes level with my own, and she rises, “I guess I should just spit it out…”

Their warm faces all turn upward. The mage sits back, away, his head dipped. He already knows. Of course he did. Of course, she’d gone to him, for confirmation.

Isabella looks at him, reading his melancholy, then back at Hawke, “You’re not dying are you?”

“No! Well, not any faster than before. That I’m aware of. No. I’m… uh…” she laughed, “Maker! Why is this so difficult! You think it’d be easy to just say _I’mgoingtohaveababy_ , but it really isn’t--”

They erupt.

“I knew it! I knew it!”

“Hawke!”

“A baby!”

She is surrounded then, all of them on their feet, attempting to rub her still very flat belly. Varric surreptitiously wipes a hand across his cheek, and raises his tankard, toasting, “To our newest member!”

We drink, a pleasant moment until Aveline ventures, “And… Fenris?”

Out of the corner of my eye I see the mage stand, and leave the house.

My hand absently covers the scarf wrapped around my wrist.

“Are you going to marry her?” Sebastian asks me.

I feel warm with wine. My mouth twitches.

“Sebastian,” Hawke chides, with wry eyes.

“It’s a valid question, Hawke,” he replies, his tone easy, “It’s a question normal people ask each other in these situations.”

“You know from experience?”

He makes a choking sound, and grimaces, “No!”

“A likely story…” Isabella purrs, wrapping her arms around Hawke’s middle.

I feel out of place in the conversation. Like I am carved out of polished wood. “I… I need air.”

I walk outside, into the cool night. The mage is still standing outside, leaning tall and pathetic against the exterior wall of the estate. The air smells like the tiny white flowers that bloom at night, but also that burnt smell of him, of magic. Seeing me, he nods, and starts to walk away, back to his clinic, I presume. I watch him go, feeling a surge of possessiveness I’d rather not name.

She had told me before this dinner, of course. When she first suspected. And again when she knew for certain. She had offered to end it. Asked me if that was what I wanted. I said it was her decision, but that I was not prepared to be a father. The things in me that would have allowed for that, wanted that, had long been taken away.

She had kept it. She would have it. I was not displeased about her decision.

She comes to find me. Her hand seeks out mine.

“That wasn’t too bad,” she smirks.

“They seem… very enthusiastic.”

“Yes. Indeed. I was not prepared to see Varric cry,” she squeezes my fingers, “And you. How are you?”

“I’m happy, Hawke.”


	3. Chapter 3

This body. I swear it to her, with every fiber I can claim; that this body will protect her. I do this without ceremony, without formal vows or an exchange of rings. If I have been made into a weapon, stripped of some part of me that can never be restored, some humanity… then I accept that. So be it, I am a weapon. But I will be hers, and I will protect her with my entirety.

No. I correct myself.

I will protect _them_.

It is a strange sensation, one I’ll never entirely grow accustomed to. We are on her bed, the fabric of her robe open around her. She holds my bare fingers in her warm hand, and pushes, hard, into the firm curve of her belly.

He moves. His arm. His elbow. I feel him move, inside of her.

He is a soft creature still. Not fully formed. I pull my fingers away, because he is too soft and I will hurt him.

But she shakes her head at me, and presses my hand, my flat palm against the curve of her, of them. And he kicks at me.

“He's had hiccups every night this week,” she says, her mouth curling.

The others are excited. Now… there is a new life to think of. He softened the hard world. He still seems so abstract to me. Her bedroom is filled with the gifts they have given her. Tiny pieces of clothing, toys, blankets, balms and cloth to use as diapers… and it occurs to me as she shows the things to me that I have no idea what one does with a baby. There is a cradle. Varric’s gift. It sits waiting against the wall, near her desk. Hawke has spread tiny blankets inside, even though he will not need to sleep there for months. I heard her tell Aveline that it helps her believe that he is really coming. To have a place for him. Waiting.

“Hawke…”

Her eyes level with mine.

“Move in. Here.”

“I’m not sure that that’s--”

“Fenris,” she sounds tired, “He’ll be here soon. Just a few months. I want you to be here. And anyway, you sleep here most nights already.”

The house is quiet. I hear the two dwarves, snoring, down the hall. Her brother is gone. Her mother is dead. But, she has mended. I think the comfort of him, of the child and the life they share, helped. After all of that loss, she still has a family.

She yawns, dipping her head into the crook of my neck. Her body is weaker now. I know that it disturbs her. The magic in her has changed… and while she has all of us with her, protecting her, I know there is a new fear in her. Instinctual fear. A new awareness of her mortality, I suppose. For the first time in her life, she is exhausted by the end of each day.

He shifts inside again. She sighs.

The world changed. It took me a long time to notice it; it was not a monumental change. Not a murdered ruler, not a war, not a revolution. It was a heartbeat. A flutter that started inside of her.

I brush the skin of her belly, warm and exposed to the dying fire.

I do not want to leave her. I never want her to fear anything.

“Yes. I’ll live here. Of course.”

She kisses me, curls into me, and I hold them both close.

“I need a bath.”

“I’ll draw one for you.”

“Mmm,” she is nearly asleep, “Thank you. I love you.”

“You…” her breathing is deep and even, and she cannot hear me, “You’re the air in my lungs, Hawke.”

Clumsy. But, it is enough. She smiles.


	4. Chapter 4

There is no sound in the world.

“What’s inside?!? What happened to her??”

This is what drowning feels like. This is limbo.

“I’ll kill you! Where’s is she?! Hawke!!!”

I cannot move fast enough. I cannot tear them apart.

“Please!!”

I cannot change this. Not with killing.

“Tell me!!”

Not with more blood. I cannot change this.

“Hawke!!!!!”

I failed her.

Him.

 _Them_.

The door is open, and the house is dark. Darkness spilling into more darkness. They hold me back, which is dangerous for them. There are Aveline’s city guards there, useless, pathetic symbols of safety always has been a dream. Sebastian and another man I do not know hold me. Blurs of bone and hair at my sides, scratching against my burning arms. My bones catch fire and I jerk myself free. I don’t want to kill them. And I do. I _want_ to kill them all.

“Marian!!!!” her name rips from my chest.

Varric steps out of the darkened door, his face pale. There is dark wet blood on his shoes. On his knees.

“Fenris, don’t.”

He holds up two red palms. I smell my family on them, in the air, my family’s blood.

“Get out of my way, Varric!”

I don’t move, but I feel my body ignite fully. I am a weapon and yet, still, still I failed her.

“She’s alive, Fenris.”

The unspoken tears at me. _He is not_.

They cannot hold me now, _how do you hold fire_ , and I enter. I smell her blood. Everywhere.

She is at the center of it all, the source, still on the ground. The abomination is over her, his hands glowing blue in the dark, the only source of light. I see her as a ghost, past the slumped curve of his shoulder.

I slip in her blood, crashing down by her head.

“Hawke.” I rasp. It’s all I can do.

This is not real. She is not Hawke. Hawke does not lie on the stone floor, split open from hip to hip. Empty where she should be full. Hawke is not a white lipped victim.

My hands shake, and I brush sticky black hair from her face.

He does not speak. He pours magic into her body, into the dark endless spaces in her. Stopping the blood. Saving her life. My head spins, hearing nothing but the ringing shatter of empty glass bottles. She is cold. It seems hopeless to me.

Without thought, I press my head against hers, so chilly beneath me, and pray in a language I hardly remember to a god that does not exist.

The dwarf returned home from the market and found her here. Like this. He ran for help, he found the abomination first.

I could have protected her. If I was here, and not off on a stupid errand. An errand she asked me to do.

They waited until she was alone.

“Who did it?” I ask her, stupidly, as if she will just open her eyes and tell me clearly, “Who was it?”

Another body is beside me, thin white hands join the mage’s, pulling the torn skin back together. Closing Hawke.

 _They cut out our son_

 _They cut him from his mother._

 _As she screamed._

“I can’t…”

I don’t hear his words, I feel them. Waves in the dark.

“Anders… yes you can,” Merrill is there with a light, “I can feel it. She’s there.”

“Maker…” That Weak Abomination! “I have nothing left.”

“Here,” she gives him a bottle.

I look up to see him open it with trembling bloodied hands. His clothing, his face, even his hair, everything is bloodied. He drinks. He gags.

“Fenris…” he looks at me, “I--”

“No! No!!” I growl.

His eyes are dark, but I feel the crackle of the demon inside of him.

“Stop this! There’s not time! She needs Anders’ help, Fenris!”

But I cannot stop this, and neither can he. It is over. He and I both know that.

“Why weren’t you here??” his head tilts, and he cracks open, that damned voice from the Fade, “Why weren’t you here to protect her?!”

“There isn’t time, Abom--”

“She chose you!! You! Why was she alone?!?”

Nothing exists. Hawke is gone. The child is gone. I am on him, I am crushing him.

We are both engulfed in blinding, unnatural power.

Merrill has gone silent, but there are other voices now.

They can’t stop this. They can’t get close to us. We burn.

I feel electricity char my bones, and meet his attack with my own. Snapping jaws. Like dogs fighting.

I need this. I need to fight. I need to kill. I need to do something and if I am a weapon, this is all I know.

His glowing eyes grow wide, our faces near so I smell the lyrium on his breath.

A woman screams behind me.

I look down. My fist is buried in his chest, and I crush his heart, wrench it, tear it.

But he does not die.

“Like this… it will not end like this,” he says, voice low and hitching over the intrusion so near his lungs, “Go ahead. If it makes you feel better, if it makes you feel powerful. You cannot kill this body now. And you cannot save her. But I can. I can save her life. Now, but not forever.”

I leave his body, and he folds.

“Do it.”

He returns to her side, “Hold her.”

Merrill takes his hands, setting them back on her, over the wound, “We’re nearly there.”

As dawn spreads a thin milky haze over the house, she lives under his hands, cradled in mine. I carry her from the floor to her mother’s bed.

She lies still, breathing, her eyes moving ever so slightly beneath their lids. I have no words for her. For once, I am not alone in this. The others are there, lingering outside. I know they are there, passing distantly like white ghosts through the wavy glass of the windows. There is only one word that carries. Isabela’s voice.

“Monsters.”

Yes. Monsters. Monsters all.

The one’s who did it.

The one who pulled her back from death.

And the one who will kill those guilty in return.


	5. Chapter 5

We abandon the estate. She moves in with me. Or… I move her there.

The City knows what happened. It is ghastly. The rumors surge. Boiling waves of rumor, lap at our door.

 _He’s alive._

 _She’s a mage. He’s a beast with those markings. It was maleficars._

 _Because the babe was damned._

 _Special._

 _Dead._

 _It was the Templars._

 _Because she sided with that apostate. They’re helping other mages._

 _Because._

 _Because._

 _Because._

The Champion of Kirkwall sits beside the fire, gaunt and wrapped in a blanket. I do not know what to say to her. If I speak, I will break. I will burn.

I go out at night. They stay with her, because she cannot be alone now. Aveline. Isabella. Merrill. Sebastian. Varric most of all. She cannot be alone. Perhaps forever. I feel her loss of independence as a hard lingering chill in my heart.

I no longer sleep at night. I hunt. Wolf that I am. But I find nothing substantial. Nothing but rumor and cold evidence. I suspect a group of Templars. She had goaded them, constantly thwarted them, argued, fought with them. _One_ in particular. One I cannot find in the City of Kirkwall any longer. Gone. Vanished. It would explain so much of the night that lays in dormant secret inside of her. Her weakness. Her inability to fight him off. It explains so much. I leave the city, I am gone for weeks. I hunt this man. But he is a ghost, and I return with nothing.

She is not home when I return. I panic first, a strange unstable condition, like standing on a shifting dune. I go to her estate (not ours, hers) and there is nothing there, save the dusty accumulated possessions. Clothes. Books. Dishes. And all the things for a son we lost.

The house stands quiet.

I walk up the stairs, to her bedroom. The wardrobe is empty. The bed unmade.

And the cradle still stands, holding small linens and a tiny plush dog, meant to be held by soft, chubby arms. To be a comfort.

I kneel by the cradle, and press my forehead against the smooth wood of the slats. My eyes closed, I hear myself say, “I’m sorry.”

I wanted him. I did. I still do. A son, who was part of me and part of Hawke. Hawke… for whom I feel something much more than love. More than words. I cannot lie and say “I love you.” The words are insufficient, paltry. Pandering. So, I say nothing now.

I feel the weight of it all, all of this death, and I sag beneath it. Hands gripping the wood, I feel it splinter. I pull it apart, I destroy it, until there is nothing left but tinder. I shred the sheets. I light a fire for the last time in this cold bloody house. I burn the toys, the wood, the clothes.

I take one strip of the impossibly small linen sheets before adding the rest to the pyre, and tie it around my wrist, layered over the scarf I’ve worn for so long. _Red and White_.

She’s chosen another. And I cannot blame her. Not now. Not ever. I understand, even. Now, I understand more of vengeance than I had before, when it was just my own life taken.

The abomination who thinks he might love her. There is so much of him inside of her now. What he poured into her to save her life… the memory of him is etched into her veins. And she seeks him out instead, pursuing him the way I had thought long ago she longed for the markings on my skin. Seeking the magic. Because that is what their kind do, isn’t it?

The Mages. The Templars. Monsters, all.

I do not hate her for leaving. I never could. I’ll follow her for as long as she’ll have me near, regardless. When I return.

But I know what he is. The abomination. I have felt his heart in my fist. I do believe that he would have killed anyone who attempted to hurt her… and that is the belief that stays my hand.

I’ll tear him limb from limb before he hurts her. That is a vow I’d make without reservation. With witnesses. And he knows it.

“I’m sorry,” I say it again, and again, pressing my fingers into the still warm ash.

I leave Kirkwall. I leave Hawke, but only for now. I’ll return to her when I have ended this.

When I have found him.


End file.
